Polish Round Table Agreement

Following the factory strikes of the early 1980s and the subsequent formation of the (then still underground) Solidarity movement under the leadership of Lech Wałęsa, the political situation in Poland started relaxing somewhat.

[5] In September 1988, when a wave of strikes was ending, a secret meeting was held, which included Lech Wałęsa and Minister of Internal Affairs Czesław Kiszczak.

The Polish communists, led by General Jaruzelski, hoped to co-opt prominent opposition leaders into the ruling group without significantly changing the political power structure.

The most controversial questions were: Principal negotiators of the governing coalition and the opposition camp were chosen by their leaders; respectively Wojciech Jaruzelski (although he did not participate in the talks), Mieczysław Rakowski, Józef Czyrek and Stanisław Ciosek, and then Lech Wałęsa and Henryk Wujec.

[8] The most important topics of negotiations were future elections, the position of the president, Senate, practical reforms of the state's structure, and bringing back free associations and unions.

[12] The most important demands, including those reflected in the April Novelization, were: As a result, real political power was vested in a newly created bicameral legislature and in a president who would be the chief executive.

Andrzej Gwiazda, who was one of the leaders of the so-called First Solidarity (August 1980 – December 1981), claims that the Round Table Agreement and the negotiations that took place before it at a Communist government's Ministry of the Interior and Administration (Poland) conference center (late 1988 and early 1989) in the village of Magdalenka had been arranged by Moscow.

According to Gwiazda, who himself did not take part in the negotiations, the Soviets "carefully selected a group of opposition activists, who passed on as representatives of the whole [Polish] society, and made a deal with them".

As Macierewicz said in February 2009, the Round Table was a "tactical success of the parts of the elites, but from the point of view of national interests of Poland, it was a failure".

[16] Piotr Bączek of Gazeta Polska weekly wrote that in the mid-1980s, the so-called Communist Team of three (Jerzy Urban, General Władysław Pożoga and Stanisław Ciosek), suggested that among opposition activists, "search for people, who are politically available" should be initiated, as "yesterday's opponent, drawn into the power, becomes a zealous ally".

[18] Musiał says that General Czesław Kiszczak himself decided which oppositional activists were "politically available" – the condition was that the candidates had to be supportive of "evolution" of the system, not its "radical rejection".